Eric Benjamin Seufert
Adtech/investor (Mobile Dev Memo); analyzes platform monetization, rev share/take rates, and earnings across social/video apps relevant to creators/streaming.
AI Could Revive Journalism, Says Podcast Guest
It was a pleasure to bring my friend Peter Stuart back onto the podcast to discuss the effects of AI on the news and media ecosystem. https://mobiledevmemo.com/podcast-can-ai-save-journalism-with-peter-stuart/
AI‑Made Product Videos Reveal Flawed Human‑Object Boundaries
Many of the eCommerce product showcase videos you now see on Instagram and TikTok are AI-generated. It's generally fairly easy to tell because the hands may be mangled, the faces don't retain consistency throughout, and/or the person in the video...
Generative AI Reshapes Digital Advertising and Tech
As always, it was fantastic to join Ben Thompson on the @stratechery podcast. We discussed the generative revolution in digital advertising, Meta’s communications challenges, the evolution of Google Search, Apple, AppLovin, and the components of a Prosperous Society.
Distilling Black‑Box Ads to Predict ROAS via Multimodal Context
I'm happy to share some of the research that I've been working on today: As ad platforms become more opaque and automated end-to-end, advertisers are left with few levers of control over campaign performance. I wanted to interrogate an idea: could...
Search Shifts to Hybrid Chatbots, Ending Static Queries
Google’s Gambit, Part 4: The end of Static Search The commercial opportunity as Search converges to a hybrid chatbot interface is fairly obvious: more queries (demonstrable, from Google’s disclosure), more ad exposures per Search session (given the conversational nature of chatbot...
AI Flywheel Powers a Personalized, Expansive Digital Economy
The Prosperous Society, Part 4: Per commercium virtus In Episode 4, the conclusion to the series, I outline the AI-enabled flywheel to the Prosperous Society and make the case that it results in a more differentiated, more personalized, and economically expansive...
AI Ads Match Human Performance—Unless Consumers Detect AI
AI-generated ads perform roughly as well as human-created ads, unless consumers suspect they were generated by AI. Researchers from the Technical University of Munich, Columbia Business School, Harvard Business School, and elsewhere analyzed more than 16 billion ad impressions and 116...
Fuel‑price Shock Persists as SPR Nears Historic Low
Headline inflation increased 3.3 -> 3.8% in April, although Core PCE was 2.6 -> 2.8%. Trump authorized a 53MM bbl release from the SPR yesterday and said that he’ll suspend the federal fuel tax. But assuming that inflation is driven principally...
Spotify Prioritizes Inventory Over Platform Efficiency in Walled Garden
Spotify, Roblox, and the conditions for a walled garden Spotify is a scaled platform with logged-in user state; why explicitly expand the amount of inventory sold programmatically rather than invest in platform-efficiency tools and data-aggregation technologies that unlock the value of...
Cashing Out, Donating Remainder Suggests Belief in Market Peak
Not to be cynical, and the article doesn't reveal how many people did this, but: surely cashing out and donating the remainder of one's shares to offset taxes signals a belief that one is selling into the top?
Hybrid Monetization Drives 59% Ad Revenue Surge
AppLovin Q1 2026 earnings: 59% ad revenue growth, the hybrid monetization opportunity for games "In prepared remarks, AppLovin’s CEO highlighted a trend of mobile games adopting a hybrid monetization model (ads and in-app purchases), given the opportunity to monetize through advertising...
Reddit’s WAU Jumps 50% While DAU Ratio Stays Flat
I'm publishing my full analysis of Reddit's $RDDT Q1 2026 earnings tomorrow, but one thing I find striking is how sticky engagement has remained as WAUq has increased. DAUq/WAUq is essentially flat from Q2 2024 while WAUq is up by...
Meta Beats Estimates Yet Shares Slide 10% Pre‑Market
Despite beating consensus on Q1 revenue and Q2 guidance in its earnings release last night, Meta's stock is trading down nearly 10% pre-market this morning.
Meta to Spotlight AI-Powered Ad-Serving in Earnings Call
$META will highlight its AI investments in ad-serving on tonight’s earnings call. I’ve spent a lot of time recently synthesizing their disclosures to better understand these systems. I'll share some resources in this thread that are hopefully useful in making...
China Blocks Meta's Manus Deal, Creating Messy Unwind
China block’s Meta’s months-old acquisition of Manus. Unwinding the acquisition at this stage would be messy. And Meta has already substantially integrated Meta’s agents into its advertising manager suite.